After a bombardment of expensive marketing, Battlefield 2042 is reportedly struggling to find an audience. DICE's shooter is rapidly losing players and publisher EA is allegedly "very disappointed" with its performance. According to an industry insider, it's even considering making it free-to-play, presumably to claw back some of its no doubt significant development budget.
I've been a Battlefield fan for years, so I don't take any pleasure in hearing stories like this. In a fair and just world Battlefield would be the biggest multiplayer shooter on the planet, not Call of Duty. But for a myriad of reasons, Battlefield 2042 has failed to capture the imaginations of even the most die-hard fans. It's a sorry state of affairs and I'm sure DICE knows it.
If I listed every issue players have with the game we'd be here forever, but prominent gripes include the absence of a single-player campaign, fewer weapons and vehicles compared to previous games, embarrassing post-match Marvel movie banter, and missing features like squad chat, custom emblems, and support for flight sticks and other non-standard controllers.
These are all valid complaints. In many ways, Battlefield 2042 feels like a step back for the series—which isn't a great look for a full-priced sequel. But Battlefield's troubles run much deeper than just pure content and mechanics. The series has been in trouble for a while now, and I think an over-reliance on gimmicks is to blame. Battlefield just got too damn complicated.
In 2009, DICE launched Battlefield 1943. This digital-only game was a massive hit, selling 1.5 million copies, and there was nothing to it. One mode, three classes, three maps. That was it. It was Battlefield stripped down to its purest essence, and I spent hours playing back-to-back games of Conquest on its beautiful, highly destructible version of the legendary Wake Island map.
Battlefield has never been better. By stripping away all the excess fat, it revealed what really makes these games special: the tactical combined arms combat, the thrilling player-created chaos, and the compelling push-and-pull of Conquest mode. Not a single skyscraper dramatically collapsed on the map, and it was still brilliant. Pure, unadulterated, unfiltered Battlefield.
That's my problem with the series these days. Whether it's flashy but ultimately shallow tech like 'Levolution' (still one of the worst buzzwords of all time), long-winded Operations battles, or 2042's addition of specialists rather than anonymous soldiers, DICE seems Hell-bent on clouding the purity of its flagship game—and that pristine core is getting harder to find.
A big part of Battlefield 2042's noisy marketing push was the promise of 128-player battles on colossal maps. But I think the series would benefit from taking a step back and toning things down. I'd love to see a return to the more intimate, strategic battles of the peerless Battlefield: Bad Company 2—another example of the series thriving through simplicity.
I don't know what's next for Battlefield, but I'm sure the higher-ups at EA and DICE are having some serious talks about its future. Rather than dreaming up new, increasingly outlandish gimmicks to try and outfox Call of Duty, the developer needs to get back to basics. Make the game the focus, not the noise surrounding it. We don't want exploding skyscrapers; we want Battlefield.